Berserker
by The Scrawler
Summary: It was so simple, so easy to give in.To just stop struggling, to completely give up, to allow himself to drown in the blood red haze. Warning: Spoilers for chapter 438


_**Berserker**_

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_**Spoilers for chapter 438... I just had to write something after reading it.  


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He didn't know what to feel. His mind had no more conscious thought left.

He had the sensation of his senses dulling, yet he could still see. He could feel himself drowning, losing himself, embracing the warm currents he was sinking underneath too. It was an oddly pleasant, desultory feeling, like the time he had downed too much sake at some sleazy bar he had been dumb enough to follow ero-sennin into.

Some distant, forgotten corner of his consciousness half-heartedly reminded him that he was drowning- though in _what_, he was not quite sure- tried to urge him to open his eyes, not to give in. He paid it no attention.

He idly wondered where he was, wondered what the strange sensation that was coursing through his body was, but manage to dredge out no answers.

He had watched, shocked, from his prone position on the ground, gawking and wondering just _what on earth __had possessed her_ to jump in front of Pein and attempt to attack him all by herself. It was just damned, downright crazy and not to mention _suicidal_. He was so transfixed by her act of what appeared to be utter lunacy that he momentarily forgot the pain of the spikes stabbed through his limbs.

He'd shouted at her, asking her what the heck was she doing here, did she _not _see that that Pein guy it was downright dangerous? A cold fear had momentarily seized him, this was the man who had killed Jiraiya after all- what chance would she stand, much less? She- only a chuunin, against a dangerous ninja who had killed his teacher. His brain seemed to be in fog, crawling along at snail's pace, he couldn't seem to think what he ought to do.

She turned, her back to him, saying candidly she was simply being selfish. She continued how she had always been chasing him, wanting to overtake him, how she wanted to be with him.

A strange feeling settled in the pit of his stomach.

You changed me, she said. Your smile saved me.

_So I'm not afraid to die protecting you._

Time seem to stop for him, everything suddenly seemed totally surreal as she declared her love for him.

He briefly wondered whether the recent events had finally taken their toll on him and he was really losing it. The sharp, clear pain of the spike that pinned his hands down disabused him of the notion. It was far too sharp, to distinct to be a figment of his imagination.

It would have been nice, if he was _really _losing it, and everything happening before his very eyes was some twisted, sadistic portion of his imagination (preferably due to it being influenced by the Kyuubi's warped mind and not because he was that disturbed), he mused.

He was surprised, really. He had to admit he had never ever suspected how she felt all this while. He had known her to be some shy, weird girl who kept on blushing whenever he was around. Come to think of it, he supposed he should have put two and two together, considering the more interesting past-times of his dead teacher. He supposed he never did expect someone like her to have feelings more then platonic for him- no matter how poor an heiress her family had muttered she was, she was someone with a bloodline limit, from a prestigious clan. He was just a troublesome rabble-rouser, the dead last who had no background and was supposedly the human manifestation of the Kyuubi no Yoko (and thus one to be widely mocked and despised at every turn).

For once, he didn't know what to think. He watched, in a fog, as she charged blindly at the Akatsuki man.

In some corner of his mind, he dimly wondered if she really was crazy once more.

It all happened so quickly, he wanted to shout at her to tell her to_ get the hell away now_- but his throat was dry.

A sickening, ice cold stab of fear materialized in the pit of his stomach, as he watched, useless and unable to move. He just _knew_, even before anything happened.

He watch dazedly as she was blown back by Pein's attack easily, her head making a sickening crack against the ground, blood tricking from the side of her mouth, her eyes wide open, but the Byakugan having faded away as she lost her grasp over her chakra.

Pein had stepped over to her prone form, emotionless as he raised the sharp stake.

_Stop it_, he had yelled, small and useless, clinging vainly onto the ridiculous hope that those two, insignificant words could move a man who had destroyed an entire town without batting an eye, who spoke such hideously frightening ideologies.

The hand came down, and he heard the unmistakably nauseating squelch as the _metal_? spoke pierced through the soft tissue of her vital organs. He knew it, in a heartbeat, that she was dead, or dying, and beyond help right now. Maybe it was the heart, or perhaps the lung, so he could ensure she would suffer as her lungs filled with blood in excruciating pain, he recalled Jiraiya detailing out to him, with regards to just how damned fortunate he was to have an immortal monster fox in his body that seemed to be capable of anything and everything- most normal people, after all, were not supposed to survive someone punching a giant hole in their lung as _someone _once had.

He remembered, subduedly picking at his ramen, muttering how things would have been totally different if he had not even been the unfortunate one picked to be the Kyuubi's container, and thus wouldn't need the Kyuubi's awesome regenerative abilities to begin with. His destiny would have been completely different, the path he would have walked would have been another one. Perhaps a more peaceful one. Perhaps a more boring one. Perhaps he would not even be a ninja in that lifetime. Yesterday, he might have firmly disagreed- he liked this life of his, despite the shit that life regularly threw at him. He had his team; Kakashi-sensei, Sakura and even Sai, with his tasteless jokes that could not seem to_ not _revolve around his manhood, Jiraiya, Tsunade and Iruka, they all made for good company and practically a _family, _albeit an odd one.

Right now, however, he would gladly take one of the boring alternate lives even if it meant he would be some pathetic kid who couldn't even fight.

He absentmindedly noted that Pein was abstractedly muttering how similar it was to how some Konoha ninja had killed his own parents.

It was as though he had lost all feeling in his body. An eerie numbness and chill had consumed it, a strange sense of cold detachment and calculation.

Asuma was dead. Jiraiya was dead. Kakashi was dead.

He didn't even know if the other of the Rookie Nine were even alive, and not simply reduced to a cold, unmoving corpse crushed under a pile of rubble.

Jiraiya was someone whom practically been almost a surrogate father to him, and no matter how much he grumbled about his lecherous ways, he had looked up to his teacher. It had hit him hard when learned that Jiraiya was no more, dead by Pein's hand. Kakashi's was similar, but he had managed to school himself into an emotionless mask, while holding back the tears that so badly wanted to flow. Their deaths nagged at the back of his mind, like an accusation of his deficiency, he was not strong enough, not powerful enough, he was just too weak. They haunted him, taunting and malicious.

Still, it was nothing like seeing somebody who was just a moment ago, living, breathing and _alive _being killed before your very eyes while you sat there watching. A minute ago they were alive, the next they were dead. It was true that he hadn't got to know her well her personally, but she was someone who mattered, even if he could not say he returned her feelings, someone he was acquainted with, she had been his _friend_. It was one thing to hear of someone's death, to see it after they had died, and entirely another to have been there as they were killed.

Again. Someone else had died because of him. And once more, he was too slow, too useless to stop it. Once more, he had allowed Pein to take away another of his comrades.

The hot, furious rage began to bubble up through the overwhelming shock and numbness.

_Come_, the voice hissed, malevolent and malicious, yet he found himself drawn to it inescapably.

A twisted and warped sensation had called out to him temptingly, dark and seductive, pulling him in inexorably. He felt his mind fill with a blood red haze, a strangely pleasant fog, as though he had not a care.

_Closer_

He was seized with a hideous sensation of rage and ecstasy, an overpowering urge to kill, to destroy, to completely lose himself to a bloodlust like never before as he allowed himself to be further taken in. He knew he was drowning, but he could not bring himself to be concerned, he had no more energy to move his limbs, to open his eyes, nor to regain consciousness. It was easier, much more pleasant to just allow himself to drown in, to melt into this all-consuming haze of bloodlust.

_Borrow my strength  
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He knew he was slipping, but he didn't care.

_Lose yourself_

He obliged.

His senses seemed to dull, yet become more acute. His brain had slowed to a crawl, unable to reason, transformed to the lowest, most primal and feral level.

It was effortless just to give in, to give up, to let go of any resistance and allow himself to be swept along the murderous red tide.

_Become one with me _

All he wanted to do was to leave Uzumaki Naruto behind, even if just for a while.

_When he finally opened his eyes, all he saw was red. _


End file.
